Copper Consultancy PR firm helps UK govt to undemocratic management of nuclear wastes

Whose idea was it to scrap democracy in order to dump nuclear wastes? https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/whose-idea-was-it-to-scrap-democracy-in-order-to-dump-nuclear-wastes/ Radiation Free Lakeland and others are asking: Just whose idea was it to plan to scrap democracy in order to dump nuclear wastes? Was the bright idea given to Government by the PR firm Copper Consulting?

Copper Consultancy a PR firm with offices in London, Bristol, Suffolk and most recently Cumbria, told the Department of Energy and Climate Change that: “allowing local authorities to determine the outcome of a process which is designed to deliver a national Government policy may not be the most appropriate route.” This piece of work is a response to Cumbria County Council and the majority of Parish Councils’ saying no to geological disposal of nuclear wastes.

In their blog Copper Consulting go on to say that: “local authorities are consultees rather than decision makers. The final decision rests with the Planning Inspectorate and the Secretary of State. A logical conclusion might therefore be to classify the GDF as an NSIP”

There has always been a suspicion that nuclear is a PR strategy rather than an energy strategy, now we have proof. There is a revolving door between the NDA and Copper Consultancy a PR firm. Ivan Stone who was Executive Director of Copper Consultancy is now the Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Director – of the NDA/RWM (Radioactive Waste Management – a new arm of NDA) Copper Consultancy have also just been awarded the PR job of selling newnuclear build and new nuclear wastes at Moorside to the public.

This is what lawyers Bircham Dyson Bell say about the plan: “Of course
this isn’t a random extension to the regime, the government has in mind
the creation of one such facility, likely to be in Cumbria.”

Having passed through the House of Lords despite strong opposition which is almost unprecedented for a back room, ‘go through on the nod’ Legal Order, this PR strategy is being turned into awful reality.

Lord Roger Liddle (former special advisor to Tony Blair) said: “As a
democrat and a Cumbria citizen, I cannot support the new
current proposal that the final decision be taken out of Cumbria’s hands
and left to the Secretary of State. In reality, there is no willingness to
engage seriously with the whole local community. Instead, there is only a
determination that in the last resort, the Secretary of State will be able
to do whatever he decides. This is a travesty.”

Campaigners from Radiation Free Lakeland, No Nuke Dumping and others
lobbied MPs within a very short space of a few days to oppose The Order
which was to be passed through the House of Commons as ‘Delegated
Legislation.’ This means that there is a presumption to pass the Order
uncontested in a back room by Parliamentary Committee.

Following the
Committee Meeting, in a tweet on the 18th March to campaigners Duncan
Hames MP said “A select group of independently minded Lib Dem and Labour
MPs have objected. This will now be voted on next Wednesday.” This of
course gives no time at all to draw attention to this in the press or
mount a campaign. Local campaigners have few resources or visible help
from mainstream NGOs on what is the most corrupt and frightening betrayal
by government over its dealings with a predermined agenda to “Implement
Geological Disposal.” Cumbria is in the frame despite protestations that
this is a “National” exercise. Only a limited test of “public support”
would be exercised despite protestations by Baroness Verma that this is
“participatory.” Planning consent would be a fig leaf and have no relation
to the kind of scrutiny brought to bear in the Nirex planning inquiry back
in the 1990s in the halcyon days when all the government wanted to bury
was intermediate level wastes. Now the plan is to include the dumping of
high level, heat generating wastes…..along with the dumping of democracy.

Opposition to the Legal Order to make geological disposal a Nationally
Significant Infrastructure Project means that a vote has been forced.

The vote will take place in Parliament on Wednesday 25th March.

PLEASE LOBBY YOUR MP to SAY NO

March 25, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK

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1.This Month

No to Nuclear Power petition

We, the undersigned, call on theUK Government to:

• Cancel all plans for new reactors,

• Phase out all nuclear power production,

• Commit to developing an energy system based on renewable energy.

Major disasters at Windscale, Chernobyl and Fukushima show the dangers associated with nuclear reactors while studies reveal their routine operation leads to increased local child leukaemia. They produce large volumes of radioactive waste, much of which will remain dangerous for millennia to come. And nuclear power and nuclear weapons industries are inextricably linked: nuclear power grew out of the nuclear weapons programme.

The costs of new nuclear are extremely high and rising, compared with the low costs of the renewables which continue to decline. Yet the Government gives large subsidies to nuclear not the renewables.

We need safe, healthy, inexpensive, and sustainable energy sources, not the dangerous diversion of nuclear power. Renewable energy offers a clear alternative to nuclear. Sign here: https://cnduk.org/actions/no-to-nuclear-power-petition/